The beekeeping equipment is stored in an old dark room. It’s fitting, because Robin Lawless is a career photographer.

An old analog timer remains on the wall from film-development days; he uses it to measure honey-extraction time: The hand-cranked extractor relies on gravity, flipping the honeycomb frames and flinging out the opaque honey, one side at a time, two minutes a side.

Conveniently, the room still has a stainless steel sink: Honey is sticky.

That’s Lawless’s primary reason for donning a big pair of gloves as he heads onto the roof of the University of Regina Classroom Building, just around the corner from this honey extraction room.

The gloves’ second purpose is to protect his hands from bee stings, although he has only been stung once this year — his own fault, accidentally kneeling on a bee while wearing shorts the other day.

“It feels like a hot needle … for about half an hour,” said Lawless, and itches like a bad mosquito bite.

Lawless has cared for the bees on campus since late April, when he relocated the hive from home.

He has been a hobby apiarist for six or seven years, after replacing his overgrown lawn with wildflowers and viewing a documentary about colony collapse disorder.

That’s when the U of R journalism school instructor decided, “I’ve got to save the bees. I’ll put a hive in my backyard.”

In that first year, he netted 800 pounds of honey.

The bees have made 157 pounds so far this year; gifting or selling it requires meeting food-grade standards, so its fate has yet to be determined.

Now is the height of the season. The four-year-old queen bee is laying 1,500 eggs a day, and the colony numbers about 40,000 — double its average population.

The Italian and Russian honeybees work themselves to death in six weeks.

The bees fly within a three-kilometre radius of this rooftop, collecting pollen and nectar from trees in bloom, neighbourhood flower gardens and the on-campus vegetable garden five floors below.

The latter garden, and a future orchard planned for nearby, is the reason the bees are here.

Jocelyn Crivea, a bee enthusiast and member of the university’s President’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability, suggested Lawless’s involvement.

She said the hive provides an excellent opportunity for sustainability (bees pollinate the campus gardens), connecting with communities (the gardens feed people, including clients of Carmichael Outreach), and research.

“Honeybees aren’t the same as wasps or even bumblebees. It’s a good learning tool,” said Crivea.

A couple of biology classes have so far toured the hive, and Lawless has had interest from students wanting to help with the bees. He hopes to inspire studies of the insects as their health is in jeopardy.

“There’s a decline in the population of bees worldwide for various reasons — pesticides, mites, sicknesses,” said Lawless. “It’s about two-thirds of our food source that these pollinators help us with … There aren’t enough studies being done at the moment.”

His contribution is keeping this hive healthy, even though beekeeping is hard work.

“It’s hard because the supers are 80 pounds and you have to lift them and haul them and extract them,” said Lawless.

Honey extraction is important because, when the frames get too full, the bees will leave and build a new hive elsewhere.

In the summertime, there’s maintenance, which is hot work on a stone-covered, unshaded roof: Checking on the bees, medicating them to prevent mites — the varroa destructor is the biggest threat, which attacks the larvae and can ultimately kill off the hive.

In the fall, there’s deconstructing the supers and insulating the brood chambers for a winter of clustering. (Bees don’t hibernate.)

“But it’s worth it,” said Lawless. “It’s being a part of something that’s certainly worthwhile, giving back I suppose and making sure we have good food sources. And lots of nice honey — there’s always that aspect.”

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